Power Back On

Troy and Maryanne,

It looks like fun there. Since we moved from Utah, I have a hard time imagining 32" of snow. I've seen snow like that when we've taken the scouts and young men camping on Mt. Rainier, but nothing like this where we live. If you've got power and heat, that would actually be fun, I think, for a day or two if you didn't have travel plans.

We finally got our power back yesterday morning, for a total of 6 1/2 days without. The generator our friends loaned us really was a huge blessing. It's funny, but since the power has come back on for most (but not all) of the area, Craigslist is filled with folks selling off the generators they just bought themselves. We plan on taking advantage of that, and purchasing our own. One more item of preparedness for next time. And there will be a next time, I am sure.

Jake is back from Hawaii, and we are all getting prepped for the wedding next week. Hope to see some of you either in Oakland/Napa next week, or in Redmond on the 6th for the open house.

Have a merry Christmas, and we'll make some phone calls Christmas day.

Kevin & Kate

Holiday Blizzard

Glad to hear that the NW Folkmans are all okay! We hope you have power again and are all warm and cozy. What a good lesson about needing cash for emergencies. I think we've got about $15 and a jar of change. Luckily we haven't lost power with all this snow, but your predicament has made us realize we need to be better prepared for all situations. I'm glad I went grocery shopping Tuesday night, because it looks like we won't be digging out until Friday afternoon.

The snow in Denver started falling Wednesday morning and hasn't stopped. Troy had to go into the office for a few hours and since my minivan has new snow tires, he drove that and left his little sedan. It was a good thing he did because he almost didn't make it home. The interstate was snowpacked and there were more abandoned cars than there were driving. Almost every exit was blocked from cars that were stuck in the snow. When he got onto local streets, there were cars stuck everywhere. There was even a city bus that had slid sideways, completely blocking all lanes of traffic. A little further down the road there was another bus stuck. Somehow Troy made it all the way to our driveway, and that's where he got stuck. At least he was home!

The kids and our huskie are loving all the snow. At first, Meka didn't know what to do when she needed to outside. She looked at the 2 ft snowdrift and then at me like, move the snow for me Mom! Finally, I had to pick her up and toss her out into the snow. Then she was happy and ran around like the snow dog she is.

This morning we woke up to about 32 inches total. We have snow drifts in our backyard that are 6ft high, the snow is packed up against our sliding glass door on the deck, and Troy's car is almost completely buried. I think we got another 4 or 5 inches this afternoon. My parents, Ian, Adam & his family, are all supposed to drive out here Friday to spend Christmas with us. No word yet whether the snow will postpone their trip.

Here's a video I made of our blizzard photos. I hope it works!
Love, MaryAnne & Family

Make an online slide show at onetruemedia.com

Powerless in Seattle

Just to let you folks know, we are still without power at our house, and at my work. We're part of the unfortunate final 200,000 without power. All around us, power is coming back on, but we may be another day or two, due to downed trees.

We got by without any damage from trees or wind, but it got cold in a hurry. With both fireplaces going, we were keeping it about 50 degrees in the house, which was okay for two days, but was no longer fun. Fortunately, one of our friends in the ward got power back Saturday night, so they brought us their generator, and we were able to get the furnace, refrigerator, and a few lights up. We have been cooking on our gas grill outside, which has a side burner, but we also baked a cake, and roasted a turkey yesterday. That has been nice.

Some of the problems we ran into included with the power outages, most of the few stores that were open, could not process debits or credit card transactions, so we had to get some cash. In the future, we are going to keep a little on hand. Gas was also in short supply, as with out power, the stations couldn't pump gas. There were two hour waits on Friday, and almost that long on Saturday. Church meetings for our entire stake were cancelled yesterday to save on gas, and keep people off the roads, as there are still many trees down. I had to detour drastically to get to work today, where we are running some computers off of a generator, but no heat, and no lights. It is probably 35 degrees in here as I type this.

We bought some hand crank radios and shaker flashlights (ie, no batteries to run down), and those have also been lifesavers. We went through half our firewood supply in the first 48 hours. Until we got the generator, we were probably 24 hours from having to seek shelter somewhere else.

But, we are all okay, no damage, just about three days behind on our final Christmas shopping, so we hope to get caught up today. Take care,

Kevin & Katie & family
- Pardon the spelling if I missed anything, my fingers are almost numb while I type this at work.

Late Night Update

For all of you Utah Jazz fans, I just wanted to let you know that I am still a believer, and was anxious to see Sloan get his 1000th win, especially in the way that they did over Dallas last night. This team, with Boozer and Williams, may be almost as good as the Malone-Stockton years when they went to the NBA finals. It's been refreshing to see them play well the start of this season, and to win over good teams like Detroit, Dallas and Phoenix. Too bad they aren't in the Eastern Conference in the same division with the Knicks and the 76ers, or they might be 18 and 3 or something like that at this point. Wish I could say the same about the Sonics, but they just aren't up to that level yet.

We are just finalizing all of the details for Jake and AJ's wedding on the 30th in Oakland, and the open house up here on the 6th. Carrie is supposed to hear about her National Board Certification early in the morning. I hope that all her hard work is rewarded. She also interviewed with Bellevue Community College about teaching some evening Spanish classes there. She thinks that might be fun.

Well, it's late here, so I am going to check out, but just thought I would say hi, as I haven't posted for a few days.

Kevin

Yoda

I love the lamp! Pete and Becca gave us a 1/2 size version last year for Christmas, but WOW! Your house must be the coolest on the block. Speaking of that movie, did you all hear that someone bought the house that was used in A Christmas Story, for all the outside shots and then remodeled the inside to look like the movie. You can now go on tours! :) Fun!

Here's a picture of Emma on Halloween. You can tell her parents are quite nerdy, but we thought it was one of the only years that we would be able to dress her like we want to.

I love all the pictures! Keep 'em coming! :)

Love, Carrie